Settling
by Locked in a Stony Tower
Summary: Lucy Quinn settles into McKinnely as a freshman.


_Disclaimer:_The World of Glee and the charecters who live there are product of Fox Entertainment. This is just my way of expressing that they have succeded in being entertaining.

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><p>Quinn Fabray was flushed with happiness and distraction during her sixth period English class. Coach Sylvester had been at her gym class and out of thirty girls, she had been one of just four invited to try out for the Cherrios. She knew she could defeat the brunette named Morgan and the redhead was too tall to look good with the rest of the team, plus hadn't wised up the fact that contacts would flatter her face a lot more than her chunky glasses.<p>

The other girl, Brittany was in her history class along with another girl who had merited a try out, Santana Lopez.

It was during her happy distraction that she zoned out the teacher and noticed the bluest eyes in the whole world. Sure, he was dressed a little horribly, in a green sweater vest of all things, but his face was clean and clear with a kind of shine and alertness. He sat on the other side of the table from Quinn, right against the corner of the square table formation. His back was to the window, and the late summer breeze played a bit with his hair, so that the short fringe refused to sit flat.

Quinn couldn't get her eyes off the way that he tapped the end of his pen against his bottom lip.

She could have died from happiness when the teacher told them to break off into groups. She gathered her binder and pen up and joined him, sitting at the other side of his corner.

"Hi, I'm Quinn." She stuck out her hand for him to shake and he looked a bit taken aback. Did people not appreciated the hot nerds in Lima Ohio? But he kept his cool and shook her hand back with his black and yellow gloved hand "Artie. Haven't seen you before Quinn, did you go to Buckingham for Junior High? I was at Lima Middle."

"No, my family just moved here." Quinn told him "I don't know that many cool hangout spots around here yet…can you tell me about some of them?"

"I can tell you about all three of them." Artie deadpanned "If you find any others, then you might get called a trendsetter for a few days, then all the jocks and Cheerios will take over."

"Hey!" Quinn protested "I might become a Cheerio."

Artie looked incredulous "Then why are you talking to me?"

"What do you mean?" Quinn asked, giving Artie an appraising up and down look. Then she saw his legs, sitting innocently and very still against the footrest of his chair. His chair that was connected to two large wheels and two smaller ones. She swallowed hard.

"I didn't even notice." She said honestly "I just saw your ey…attentiveness, and I have no idea what's going on. I figured that I should work with someone who does."

Artie nodded "Alright."

He turned his attention back to his annotations on the short story they had been assigned and chewed at his lip a little bit before he started explaining what he had thought about the story.

Quinn took a few notes, because Artie explained it in a much more engaging way than the teacher had.

After the first few sentences, she remembered the gist of the story and was able to offer a commentary back to him. She glanced around the room. The teacher had left a few minutes ago and had taken his coffee mug with him, so Quinn knew better than to expect him back in the last fifteen minutes of class.

Artie offered some light talk, asking about her family and hobbies and Quinn happily filled in details, asking him in return. He turned fifteen next month and liked to play guitar. His family consisted of his parents, older brother Jonathan, younger brother Charlie and baby sister Lindsey.

Quinn offered up Frannie and her parents, mentioning that they might see them at church. Then Artie shook his head and explained that his parents were Protestant and whenever he could get away with it, Artie attended at the black Baptist church with his friend Mercedes Jones.

"They sing all the best Jesusy music." He explained himself with a shrug.

Conversation had a general light and pleasant feeling, but the back of her mind was still reeling with the realization that the first guy in this whole school who she had been attracted to was a crip– _in a wheelchair_.

But still…he seemed like he was a nice guy…and he was handsome in spite of it all. He wouldn't be her first choice to pursue for a boyfriend, but what if he was the best that she could get.

Then suddenly she realized what she was doing. She was trying to settle.

Lucy Caboosey would have had to settle. She was Quinn Fabrey, and she wouldn't settle for anyone. She would look over all her choices and go for the best, just because she knew she could have it.

Just as she came to this realization, the bell rang loudly and Quinn bid Artie farewell, collecting her bag and leaving the room.

"Hey Q! Quinn!"

It was Santana.

Quinn gave a small grin. "Hey S, what's up?"

"Q, why were you sitting with the cripple? Do yah wanna be a loser and ruin your chances of joining Cheerios?"

Brittany piped in her slow spacy two cents "Robots can't help it if they're losers. It's all to do with the way their circuits were put into their brains."

Quinn quirked her head at Brittany for a second, before deciding not to say anything to her.

She wanted to defend Artie, she really did, but she wanted to be on the Cheerios more.

She laughed bit to herself _Well there you go, Lucy Quinn_

"Oh you mean Abrams? Just trying to get my community service done right away."

She started gathering all her hair up for a Cheerio style ponytail and yanked at the scrunchie around her wrist with her teeth. She spotted Artie over her shoulder, obviously having heard her, and winced. Well that would have been embarrassing if he was anyone cool.


End file.
